Energy-efficiency efforts making homes greener

More than 80% of builders report that energy efficiency is making today's homes greener compared to two years ago. Use of energy-efficient features is pervasive in the market - the top practice by nearly all surveyed builders and remodelers, regardless of their level of green building activity. This comes from a report produced by McGraw-Hill Construction in conjunction with the National Association of Home Builders and Waste Management - the free SmartMarket Report: "New and Remodeled Green Homes: Transforming the Residential Market."

The report also notes that around two-thirds of builders and remodeler respondents state that customers request green homes or remodeling projects in order to lower their energy use or save money, more than twice any other factor.

These results complement survey findings by theConsortium for Energy Efficiency regarding the EPA's Energy Star program. The 2011 report shows that the majority of American households recognize, understand and are influenced by the Energy Star label. Similar to last year's findings for 2010, 64% of households associate the Energy Star label with "efficiency or energy savings." A little more than 40% of households knowingly purchased an Energy Star-labeled product in the past 12 months, and of those, nearly 80% are likely to recommend an Energy Star product to others.

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Kelly Faloon was a former editor of Plumbing & Mechanical as well as the BNP Media Plumbing Group’s Integrated Content Development Specialist. She also was a former editor of the Radiant Comfort Guide the Radiant & Hydronics Report — both official publications of the Radiant Professionals Alliance — and twice-monthly Radiant & Hydronics eNews, an enewsletter for anyone interested in the world of heating with hot water.

Her editorial specialties included women in plumbing, recruiting for the trades, green construction techniques, water conservation, water treatment, hydronic heating, radiant heating and cooling, snow melt, solar thermal and geothermal.

After a 3½-year stint at sister publication Supply House Times, Faloon joined the PM staff in December 2001 as senior editor. She was named PM’s managing editor in 2006 and editor in 2013.

Previously, she spent nearly 10 years at CCH, a publishing firm specializing in business and tax law, where she wore many hats — proofreader, writer/editor for a daily tax publication, and Internal Revenue Code editor.

A native of Michigan’s northern Lower Peninsula, Faloon is a 1986 journalism graduate of Michigan State University.